Shelby - various updates

Shelby's been a busy girl this summer. She has seen her various doctors (all 5 of them), had a CT Scan, an EEG, and kept up her regular appointments with her three therapists. I have talked about her self-feeding milestones, but she has made significant progress in other areas as well. As Beth, her PT said today, this has been a summer of awakening.

Shelby had an EEG done before going to the neurologist at the end of June. Dr. Poplawski was pleased with the EEG, as compared to the one she had back in December. The Dec. 2010 EEG showed epileptiform discharges on both sides of her brain. The one in June showed less frequent discharges, and only on the right side of her brain. We decided to keep her Keppra levels the same.

Our physical therapist and orthopaedist decided that Shelby was ready for orthotics, so she was fitted for Cascade A.F.O's in June. Shelby is wearing them most of the day now, and it has been fine. They help with her stability and she is tolerating the standing position more and holding her left foot in a better position with them on. So far we have been pleased.

We had Shelby's 2-year well visit with the pediatrician a couple weeks ago. She is still in the 3rd percentile for weight at 22 lbs, but is now in almost the 75th percentile for height at 34 and a half inches. Since she has been eating so well, we are not nearly as concerned about her feeding intake. Dr. Love said she will probably be tall and thin like her dad. He was especially impressed with Shelby's language skills, which are pretty much on target for her age. It feels really good to be able to say that she is "on schedule" for something developmentally.

On a much lighter note, I was able to get Shelby to sit still long enough to french braid her hair this morning for the first time ever. She looked adorable:

And lastly, Shelby seems to be in a really good place with her therapists right now. We had a rough spring as far as therapy goes...Shelby seemed to shut down and resist any of her therapists efforts. Thankfully, she has done great with PT and ST this summer. I had mentioned that she started with a new OT recently. He is enthusiastic and has plenty of ideas and Shelby seems to like him, but the two of them have been engaging in a power struggle that has held up progress--you know how stubborn she is! Today we did a joint session with PT and OT and we had a breakthrough. Shelby did great, and the entire hour was actually fun for everyone involved as you can see from the pictures below:
Two different times, Shelby started to pull up by herself at Harding's train table. I hope to see more of that in the near future!
The nice thing about having the summer off (besides being able to go on multiple vacations) is that I have been able to be at all of Shelby's therapy sessions. She has come a long way this summer, and I feel like we are in a good place going into this school year. We'll be doing some type of modified constraint therapy in the fall and I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with leftie then.